Learning theorists through the years have made the parsimonious assumption that learning principles generated with individual animals are equally applicable to the social learning context. The nature of the experimental setting is an important determinant of individual animal learning and it is not suprising that earlier researchers stressed only that aspect of the social setting. Yet recent studies suggest that factors peculiar to the social environment may also be equally important for predicting behavior in the social context. One such factor may be agonistic behavior. Three experiments are proposed to examine the relationship between agonistic behavior and the performance of a previously learned behavior. The 100-day old male rats will be selected for relative aggressiveness (dominance/subordination) and trained individually in a modified operant box. The animals will then be selectively combined so that each pair is represented by a dominant and by a submissive rat. In the first 2 experiments, the animals will press either a single bar (Experiment 1) or 2 bars (Experiment 2) for food from 2 pellet dispensers located on the wall opposite to the bars. Experiment 3 will use 2 bars, however, the reward will be to avoid or escape an electric footshock. These environments are designed to produce varying amounts of conflict and thereby differing levels of aggressive behaviors. Pilot data have been collected for Experiments 1 and 3. The results suggest that the relative aggressiveness of the animals in the social group is an important determinant of social performance. Moreover, the environmental variables, which evoke varying amounts of agonistic behavior, may also be an important factor influencing formerly learned behaviors in the social setting. The implications of the research are that learning and performance in the social setting may not be determined exclusively by such things as the reinforcement schedule of the animals' drive level. Other, "social" variables may play an equally important role.